Pilot Site Visit

In this section, we will briefly describe different activities for the keiki at Mānoa Heritage Center. The tour was focused around the keiki (children).

The keiki listened to a lot of story telling about the Mānoa Heritage Center and Mānoa Valley. In this picture, two of the keiki look at a painting of Mānoa Valley in the old days.

We toured the Kūkaʻōʻō Heiau and the Native Hawaiian Plant Garden. In the old days, people could stand at the heiau facing mauka (to the uplands) and see the ridgelines of Mānoa Valley, and then turn to makai (to the sea) to see the beaches of Waikīkī. When we were there, we could see a glimpse of what our kūpuna have also seen.

Here is a picture showing one of the activities at the Mānoa Heritage Center. The keiki had a chance to help make ʻōʻō sticks (digging sticks). They were practicing laulima, which is the Hawaiian value of working together.

Then, the keiki learned about ʻuala (sweet potato) and they gathered ʻuala to take home. The mākua (parents) were also able to take a bagful of cuttings to plant at home. The keiki used the ʻōʻō that they made to dig out the ʻuala tubers. In the māla (garden), many of the keiki and mākua spoke ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi (Hawaiian) to one another. E ola mau loa ka ʻōlelo Hawaiʻi–The Hawaiian language shall live forever.